President Moon Jae-in appointed the disputed nominee Cho Kuk as justice minister and five other nominees to ministerial and minister-level posts, Monday.

문재인 대통령이 월요일 논란이 되고 있는 조국 법무부장관 후보자 외 5명을 장관 및 장관직에 임명했다.

This came after Moon conducted a Cabinet reshuffle on Aug. 9. Since then, there have been massive media reports centered on fraud and corruption allegations involving Cho's family, especially his daughter and wife. On Friday, the prosecution indicted Cho's wife, Chung Kyung-sim, an English literature professor at Dongyang University, on charges of fabricating the university dean's award certificate in 2012 to help her daughter gain admission to a medical school.

Accordingly, Cho, as justice minister, will supervise the prosecution investigating his wife and daughter. What a bizarre situation! Aside from personal feelings Cho may have about what is happening to his family, few wouldn't doubt the credibility of any outcome of the ongoing investigations. This is a big potential political risk for Moon.

Despite this and the negative public feelings toward Cho's family, the liberal President chose to go ahead with him. This is viewed as an expression of his strong willingness to complete the ongoing judicial reform centered on limiting the prosecution's power given that Cho had spearheaded this project as a senior civil affairs secretary from May 2017 to July this year. In a confirmation hearing and a press conference last week, Cho, a law professor at Seoul National University, vowed to finish this challenging job, if given the chance.

In this sense, Cho's appointment is the beginning of a do-or-die political battle for Moon. This may also reflect his determination to reform the prosecution, which has a shameful history of intervening in politics through biased investigations and the leaking of confidential information it obtained in the course of conducting investigations.

But Cho's appointment is only the beginning of a rough road ahead for Moon. The negative public sentiment toward Cho and the political fights stemming from deepening ideological polarization of society will remain pressing problems for him. Above all, it seems he doesn't regard conservative parties as political partners in a true sense in governing the nation, although the way they have been doing politics has been really frustrating.